


Judgement

by Edie_Sunshine



Series: Just Two Guys [16]
Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Smutlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:23:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Sunshine/pseuds/Edie_Sunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chibs has been riding after a hard night's drinking for decades. In fact, he suspects he rides better when he's got a bit of a buzz on. Unfortunately, there are other idiots on the road, who disagree. Luckily for Chibs, Juice has more sense.</p><p>Beta'd by the wonderful Spacebabe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chibs wakes up in the middle of the boxing ring, boots and shirt missing, Bobby- flat out beside him, and he's got no idea how they got there. His right eye feels swollen, though, and Bobby's sporting a bloody lip and assorted other bruises, so Chibs guesses at a drunken boxing match at some point. Looks like he won, though...

'Knocked each other out,' Jax corrects him as he kicks at Bobby's boot and then hauls Chibs to his feet. 'Let's get him inside.' They use their feet to coax Bobby's motionless form to the edge of the ring and the man snorts into life, shoves them off and promptly falls off the edge of the boxing ring.

Turns out that Juicy managed to snag himself a bed last night, and he's sitting in the bar, fresh as a daisy, coffee in hand, when Chibs and Bobby stagger inside.

'You be okay to ride?' Juice squints at him and Chibs shrugs.

'Course. Smoke an' a brew an' I'll be all set. You sorted those guns?' 

The lad rolls his eyes, mutters something about how he might have known he'd get stuck with that, but takes his coffee into the armory with him without any real argument.

They've a long ride ahead of them, relaying a shipment of handguns to the Tacoma charter. While Juice and Jax are fussing with getting the bed-rolls packed just right, Chibs takes a sneaky dram of Irish, by way of hair of the dog. Bobby gives him a sharp look.

'What?'

'Nothing man. It's all good.' Bobby pats him on the arm, leaves him to it.

It's only eight in the morning, but the day is clear and hot and too damned bright already. Chibs gets his sunnies down over his eyes just in time to stop himself from going up in smoke the minute he steps outside. The world settles down to a nice dull brown.

He checks his doctored bedroll is secure, knows better than to trust any other man with anything related to his bike- not even Juicy. 

'You good?' Juice is looking at him like Chibs has been dropped on his head or something, eyes flickering nervously between him and Jax. 

Kid fusses about the stupidest things. Chibs has been riding after a hard night's drinking for decades. In fact, he suspects he rides better when he's got a bit of a buzz on. 

Juice is different, won't ride after more than a couple of light beers. He's even been known to switch to soft drinks before leaving at night. The lad's initials aren't the only reason they all call him Juice. 

'Heavy night last night.' Jax says. 'We can swap you out-' 

'Nah. It's my turn. An' someone's gotta stop this idiot getting lost.' Chibs slaps Juicy on the shoulder. 

It's true, it is Chibs' turn on the relay. Just because he wears the Sergeant's patch now doesn't mean he's gonna use it as an excuse to get him out of the hard work. 

Besides, it's a while since he was out on the open road for more than a few hours, and once they've made the drop off, they're gonna head out to Yosemite. 

Chibs is looking forward to a couple of days, just him and Juicy. City boy that he is, Juice loves it in the forest, being around nature seems to calm the lad more than anything, besides sex, and after the turmoil of the last month or so, it'll be good to get Juice relaxed and at ease again. 

Swapping out would mean Juice doing the relay with one of the others. Not happening.

'Look after him,' Jax says to Juice, giving him some sort of meaningful look and Juice nods, his mouth set in a firm line. Chibs had no idea Jax Teller had turned into his fucking mother...  
&&&

Chibs' hangover kicks in properly at around eleven. What had just been a bit of a headache turns into a full-on clanger, with all the bells and whistles, and a restless feeling in his guts. 

Chibs motions to Juice that he's pulling over and the kid nods and follows. 

'You okay, babe?' Juice's face pinches into a frown as Chibs unbuckles his brain bucket, kicks down the bike stand and gets off. Out on the highway, the rest of the traffic whizzes by, throwing up dust.

'Yeah, just gotta drop the kids off an' I'll be fine.' Chibs walks over to the edge of a ditch running between the hard shoulder and a field lying fallow. 

The nausea stretches and curls its way up his gullet and he has a nice long puke into the ditch: whiskey and beer and, well, he must have had chow mein for his tea last night, because a whole bunch of noodles follow it into the ditch. Fucking lovely. 

He wanders back to his bike, thinking, when did I last eat carrots?

Juice watches him with this strange expression, like he wants to say something.

'What?'

Lad just shakes his head, kicks his bike into life and they head off again.

They see a sign outside a roadside bar stating they serve food, and now it's Juice's turn to beg a stop. Lad can't do without food for more than a few hours. Still, it's cool inside. Smoky and quiet, just the echo of billiard balls bouncing off the cushions and a jukebox playing shit country music.

'I gotta take a piss. Get me a burger?' Juice does the funny, jiggly walk he always does when he needs a piss, or he's had too much coffee. He throws his wallet at Chibs and disappears towards the back.

'Hey! You want chips?'

'Chips? Lived here since how long, an' you still don't know they're fries? Yeah, course I want fries.' 

Then, just because it's fun to mess with the lad, make him stop and turn around when he's dying to just go piss, 'Hey, Juicy! Want salad?'

'Yeah, sure, whatever.' The lad turns and sets off again. Chibs can't resist.

'Hey! Juice-' He bellows and then when the lad turns, impatience coming off him in waves, Chibs mutters under his breath so Juice will have to walk back to hear what he's asked. The lad looks ready to explode, he's even got his hand hovering over his fly, ready to get it out already.

'What?'

'I said, think how far you'd a got if I hadn't just made you turn 'round an' walk all the way back!' 

Juice huffs, turns on his heel and storms off. Chibs thinks he hears the younger man muttering 'asshole' under his breath. 

It makes the girl serving behind the bar laugh, though. 

&&&

It's stupid, but Juice has been counting the days to this road trip. Life in Charming has been tough these last few months, and with Chibs promoted to Sergeant at Arms, the guy has been up to his eyes in the stuff Jax needs help with. Chibs is rock solid, that's the reason why Jax relies on him, one of the things Juice loves about him, but still, Juice has missed the time they used to get to themselves. The thought of a couple of days, just them, has been the only thing keeping him sane. 

Course, with all the added weight of the Sergeant's patch, most of which Chibs can't share with Juice, the man has been relying on his old friends, Jack, James and Jose, even more than usual. Juice has been watching the guy, feeling this little gulp of worry each time Chibs up-ends a shot down his throat.

Chibs had smelt of fresh whiskey when he came out to his bike outside TM that morning, and he does again when Juice joins him at the bar to pick up his food. 

They eat and play a game of pool, just to give themselves a break from riding for a bit, get their stuff together to head off again an hour later. 

Juice watches out the corner of his eye as Chibs returns to the bar- under the guise of returning their empty baskets and cola cans. 

Guy never cleans up after himself so Juice knows he's using the excuse to get another drink. 

He resolves to get the guns dropped off, and then, when they're alone, he's gonna find some way of telling Chibs he drinks too much, without pissing him off. Somehow. 

The traffic is heavier now. Convoys of trucks where before it had just been farming vehicles and cars. 

Truck drivers are crazy. They never look down and they don't use their mirrors. 

Juice fucking hates how tiny they make him feel. 

Of course, Chibs is fearless, and when they get stuck behind one asshole who decides to veer out into the road every time they try to overtake him, Chibs is keen to get past, regardless. 

Juice hits the throttle to catch him up and sees that the truck is close to squeezing Chibs off the road. Juice hangs back- he knows Chibs will get through, he's relentless when someone's pissed him off, but Juice is smart enough to see there's not space for both of them to get through yet, not till the truck has straightened up a little more. Juice'll have to get through when the road widens out a little. 

&&&

Chibs is almost through, in spite of the best efforts of this joker in the semi, weaving all over the show. He guns the throttle, gives wank-features the finger as he passes. 

He doesn't see the truck in the opposite lane until it's too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Chibs hits the brakes, but he's still caught between the two as they pass, air and steel pulling him and his bike apart, until he has no choice but to let go and just let the road take him- it's that or get pulled under the bike, and if that happens he's road chum. 

The ground reaches up and grabs him, pulls him under. All he can do is curl up as small as he can, hit the tarmac and be glad he'd thought to put leathers on rather than his usual jeans. Road burn is a fucking killer.

&&&

Juice sees the truck appear from behind the bend in the road, and Chibs disappears between it and the semi. Then, there's a swirl of black and Chibs is down, tumbling to a stop in the middle of the road, his bike sliding away in the opposite direction. Juice's heart stops.

The semi squeals to a halt. The other truck just keeps on going. 

Juice is off his bike, running towards the huddle of black, screaming his head off.

&&&

Chibs finds himself staring up at a piercing blue sky. He thinks he might have dropped his shades. For a long moment there's just quiet. 

He can feel a dull ache in his shoulder, growing in intensity until it's fucking screaming at him.

He thinks to himself that this was a bloody shitty thing to happen. The handguns wrapped up in the bedroll on the back of his bike are probably strewn across the highway by now- little cow pats of eighteen to life. 

For some reason he pictures himself in those prison uniforms you see in old movies, with arrows all over them, and an iron ball chained to his ankle. It's a strangely distant worry, though, close enough to give him the giggles, far enough away to know better than to jump to his feet, go scoop the guns up. 

'Chibbie! Fuck! Are you okay?' Chibs hears running footsteps and then Juice is bending over him, white faced, his eyes huge in their sockets. 

Chibs does a quick inventory: wriggles his toes and his fingers, thinks about how dizzy he feels. Not too bad. Legs fucking hurt, shoulder's killing him, but it's okay to sit up and besides, he knows he's lying in the middle of the road, and where the fuck is his bike?

'Bike!' he manages to get out, and Juice looks chastened for a moment, then tells him to stay put, disappears and returns a minute later.

'It's okay, I moved it. It's beat up but it didn't go under the wheels.' Chibs remembers how to breathe and has a go at getting himself upright again. 'No! No, don't get up, you gotta keep still, could be your back or-' Juice tries to push Chibs back into the tarmac.

'Back's fine.' Chibs tries pushing him off but the lad's strong. 'Just my shoulder-'

'Yeah, it's fucked,' Juice says, sitting back on his heels and pulling out his cellphone. 

Chibs remembers what he'd been thinking about before Juicy came running up. 

'Shit. Juicy, cargo.'

'What?' Juice pauses, probably on hold to the emergency services, cellphone pressed to his chest. 

'The cargo. Need to get it to the rendezvous point.' 

'No way! It can wait till we get you to a hospital... Uh, what? Oh, uh, ambulance, need an ambulance. Where are we? Oh shit-' 

Chibs rolls his eyes, points to the sign on the roadside, then starts trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with his shoulder, because it's not moving and it's heavy as lead.

'Hey, buddy!' Another voice, one of the truckers, Chibs guesses and curls his lip into his best scowl. The guy pays no attention. It's possible the scowl loses impact when you're lying flat on your back in the middle of the road with most of your clothes torn off you. 'We gotta get him outta the road.' 

Juice just shakes his head, tells the guy to hold on and says something into his cellphone. 

'Hey, help me up.' Chibs reaches out with his good hand, slaps it down on Juice's shoulder and tries to haul himself up. Hurts like a fucking bastard! Juice doesn't look too keen. 'Come on. Integrity of my spine's gonna be fuck all good if I'm steamrolled by a soccer mom in an SUV!' 

Juice relents, slides one arm under Chibs good shoulder, round to his back, and between them they get Chibs vertical. The truck guy tries to grab the other side of Chibs but there's no fucking way anyone's touching that arm, especially not one of the wankers who caused it. 

The pain in Chibs' shoulder is white hot, has him gasping and panting. His legs feel like acid-dipped jelly and it takes everything in him to put one foot in front of the other. He's damned if he's gonna let Juicy carry him.

'Which one are you, then?' he asks the trucker, by way of conversation. 'The joker who wouldn't let me pass, or the wanker coming in the opposite direction who wouldn't fucking stop?'

'Hey, man, I just came 'round the corner an' you were driving down the middle of the road! No way I coulda stopped in time.' The guy gestures back down the road to where his truck is stopped, to the skid marks in the road stretching off into the distance. 'Other guy took off.' 

Juice helps Chibs to the dusty roadside, props him against the barrier and tucks his own cut behind his head. 

And now, Chibs can get a better look at his own injuries. 

Jesus. 

And, he can see his bike. 

Shite. 

He lets the back of his head fall back against the metal of the barrier. The pain feels pretty good. Better than the fire in his shoulder, anyway.

He looks down at himself again and thinks that he looks like raw steak. His cut and the leather jacket beneath it have saved the skin on his arms, chest and back, but his pants are scraped to threads down one side and the skin showing beneath is torn and bloody. 

The jacket wasn't able to stop his arm getting yanked out of its socket, though. And now it's hanging, useless like the wing of a bird after the cat got it. 

The helmets Sons wear aren't really fit to be called that, just a little afterthought of plastic to make other people feel better. Chibs' head should be pulped, but it looks like the Patron Saint of Piss-Artists has been watching over him. Still, he can feel that tell-tale rawness that means his face has been scraped to shit. 

He turns the hand of his good arm over and finds that the leather of his gloves has been scraped as badly as his pants. The backs of his hands are as bloody as his legs. 

Thank god he'd managed to brake and thrown himself free of his bike. If he'd gone under it, he'd have been dragged down the highway and pieces of his body would be lying strewn over the tarmac. 

He's seen a lot of brothers after a bike crash, JT included. He remembers that JT had been missing both his legs and most of his skin when he'd been found all mangled up in the road.

Thank god Chibs hadn't gone under the wheels like Teller had. 

'Hey, idiot.' Slumped against the barrier, his head resting on Juice's bunched up jacket, Chibs reaches up with his good hand, slaps Juice on the chest with the back of it. 'Nine lives. Like your stupid cat.'

'Yeah, Chibbie.' Juice catches his hand, glares at the scrapes through the torn leather. 'One ear, one eye, gimpy walk- you really wanna use my cat as an example?' 

Now the excitement's dying down, kid's ratty as anything. He gets snippy when he's stressed. It's quite sweet, really.

'Listen, you gotta get that cargo to the Tacoma guys-' Juice looks like he's gonna argue. Chibs hits him with a warning look, flicks his eyes over to where the truck guy is whistling and shaking his head at the wreckage of Chibs' bike. 'Hey, leave that!' 

Last thing they need is for anyone to see what's hidden in the mangled bedroll. How it didn't drop its load, he'll never know. 'It's only another, what, twenty miles to the rendezvous. You'll be back in no time.'

'Forget it, I'm not leaving you.' Juice's mouth sets into a stubborn pout. Kid knows he's beat, he just doesn't wanna give up easy. Juice reaches over, fishes in the inside pocket of Chibs' cut. 'Is your cell working?' The burner's fine- no more scratched than usual. Juice eyes it, thinks for a second. 'Okay, look. I'll go to the rendezvous when the ambulance gets here. With your shitty insurance they'll just stabilize you and then move you some place that's covered by your plan... Call me when you know where you are and I'll come find you.'

Kid's an idiot.

'Juicy.' Chibs pitches his voice low, keeps an eye on the trucker, who is now scuffing his boots, like he's trying to avoid listening in. 'You need to go now. Cops get here, they'll run our plates and then they'll search the bikes.'

'They get a sniff of your breath an' they're gonna-' 

'Jesus Christ, Juicy!' Chibs is tired, now the adrenaline's worn off. He doesn't have the energy to deal with Passive Aggressive Juicy.

'Okay, fine! Just, here, take a bunch of these.' Juice reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls out a mangled tube of peppermints and tears at it so Chibs can eat them with one hand only. The sweets are blood-warm and sticky. Just the smell is enough to turn Chibs' stomach. 

He fucking hates peppermint, chucks a handful into his mouth regardless.

&&&

The sight of Chibs, his cheeks all puffed out with sweets should be hilarious, but Juice can't bring himself to smile. He just gets to his feet, takes Trucker Guy to one side.

'Listen, uh-'

'Stan,' Trucker Guy supplies.

'Okay, Stan. Uh, we were on a kind of a tight deadline. Um... I gotta go. Can you stay here with him and uh... yeah...' Stan looks at him like he's crazy. He's probably right. 

'What about your buddy's bike?'

'Uh, oh, shit.' Juice puts his cellphone back to his ear and moments later, Jax is growling into his ear.

'Jesus fucking Christ, Juice!' Juice can almost smell the smoke as Jax sparks one up, breathes down the telephone line. 'How bad?'

'Uh... He's in one piece... but I think his shoulder's dislocated and he's got pretty bad road rash... He said I should take the cargo up to the Tacoma guys- don't want the cops to see me.'

'He's right. He okay to be left?'

'Yeah, I guess. I mean, there's a truck driver with him...'

'Then do it. Make the meet, then head back to him.' There's a beat, during which Juice can imagine Jax scratching his brow, pacing, stopping dead. 'Hey, shithead, don't let him get breathalyzed.'

It's fucking horrible, getting on his bike and leaving Chibs behind on the side of the road. 

&&&

The ambulance finally turns up and Chibs would love to give them a load of shit for leaving him there for so long, but he's a smart boy, so he shuts up and just keeps sucking on his faceful of mints. He waves goodbye to the trucker guy and heaves a sigh of relief when the cops don't give him that look or whip out a breathalyser. Hopefully they'll get pulled out for a real emergency so they can't follow the ambulance and corner him in the E.R.

The hospital is a dump. It stinks of detergent and death, and has the kind of heat that sits on your top lip and suffocates you. There's a couple of guys in overalls staring up at one of the AC vents, their lips pursed. Ah shite. 

Chibs can only hope he isn't badly hurt enough that they'll try to keep him in.

The club president having a doctor for his old lady means that the Sons can usually avoid hospitals, but Chibs is pretty sure Tara doesn't have an x-ray machine hidden away in storage, so he guesses he'll just have to suck it up. 

It's Saturday so there's only a skeleton staff on, and there's a full moon, which apparently means there are lots of crazies, if the overworked porter who shuffles his trolley from place to place, is to be believed. 

Chibs lies on his trolley and listens to a drunken rendition of John Lennon's Imagine, just the first line, over and over, since the wino, who fucking stinks of piss, is too soused to remember the rest. 

A woman of seventy goes wandering past with her gown pulled up, flashing her shriveled old minge to anyone who happens to glance in her direction. 

The nurses keep thinking he's Irish, or worse still, English, and no one will give him any painkillers till he's had his scan and the doctor gets 'round to him. 

Chibs lies back, hopes Juicy gets there soon. If nothing else, winding the lad up will help take his mind off his injuries. 

One doctor in the whole place, and the guy looks about twenty, if that. Doctor Ramachandran is small and neat and precise looking, in spite of the dark circles under his eyes and the vomit on his tie. He blinks owlishly and frowns a lot, and when he speaks, it's in small and neat and precise little sentences. 

'Yes. We will pop your shoulder back into place. We will administer a small sedative first. It will be only a little uncomfortable.' He's lying. It's gonna fucking hurt. Chibs blinks up at the ceiling. 

'Morphine?' He asks, hopefully.

'I am sorry. It is not possible.' Ramachandran shakes his head dolefully, as if he really is sorry. 

'Pretty nurse?' Chibs asks, knowing what the answer will be and, right on cue, a nurse who looks like a cross between Clay and the scariest dinner lady at St Arsenius Grammar School, steps forward. She glares at Chibs' arm like she's gonna force it back in with sheer force of personality. Oh shit, he thinks, I'll take the grandma in her nightie, thanks!

&&&

Juice makes the rendezvous, the Tacoma VP scowling through his aviators as he sees him riding up the slip road. The guy shakes his head sadly when Juice relates the events of the day.

'Man, that is shitty. How bad's his girl?'

'I dunno, pretty scraped up but it's mostly in one piece, so...' 

'Yeah. They take him to General?' The guy reaches into his cut, takes out a small hip flask and hands it over. 'Give him this when you see him. Don't let them take him to ward 10- that ward nurse hates bikers...'

Juice tips the contents of the hip flask out onto the shoulder once the Tacoma boys are out of sight. He's on his way back towards the highway where he left Chibbie when the cellphone in his cut starts to vibrate against his chest, and he pulls over to fight it free.

Chibs is at General. He's on ward 10. The sister on shift fucking hates bikers... 

Juice tells him he'll be there as soon as he can, asks, does he need anything picking up? Chibs' response is lost amid a load of background noise that sounds like an old drunk, singing. The line goes dead and Juice figures he should go find the guy a toothbrush and a newspaper.

&&&

Chibs slumps against the pillows and wishes for stronger painkillers or something to drink, or both. The ice pack they gave him for his shoulder has melted to nothing in the heat. 

John Lennon has now been joined by some retarded looking chick, banging on the tiled floor with her crutches, frantically out of time to his singing.

Chibs remembers very little of his army medic training, but he knows that dislocations need fixing fast or they just get more swollen and more painful, everything'll get all torn up and the nerves will be fucked. He's got bugger all chance of being moved back to St Thomas', though- his healthcare plan won't allow it.

'Come on, doc, fix my arm an' let me outta here!' he calls after Doctor Ramachandran's back and the little man turns and comes back to him, shaking his head sadly.

'I am very, very sorry. We must relocate your shoulder first. Rest assured, we will get to you soon enough.' 

Guy's full of shite, but Chibs can't bring himself to piss off the only doctor who seems to be working the crazy shift in this place.

Juicy creeps into the ward like he's trying to avoid someone, his eyes all huge and watchful. There's a little plastic bag from the pharmacy under his arm and he holds it out when he reaches Chibs.

'Here, I got you a toothbrush, man.' Juice glances around the ward and doesn't look any less antsy for it. 'Why's your arm still busted? I thought they'd have-'

'X-ray's fucked.' Chibs gets a good hold of the lad's wrist, pulls him closer so they can talk without being overheard. 

'Seriously?' Juice lets himself be pulled. 'They give you anything for the pain?'

'Nah, the fuckers.' Now no one can really see, Chibs slides his hand over Juice's wrist, down to his hand, gives the fingers a squeeze. 'An' this fuckin' ice pack's just a bag of warm water now!' he yells for everyone else's benefit and Juice shushes him, his eyes panicked.

'Chibbie, seriously, shut up! Trike said this is the worst fucking ward and the head nurse is a psycho.' 

'Who's that? Evil Edna? Yeah, I met her already. Fuckin' hates bikers. Think she's got the keys to the medicine cabinet though, so if you see her, chat her up for me.'

Juice reaches into his cut, pulls out the little bottle of Vicodin he always keeps on him, hands them over. 'One,' he says warningly and rubs his forehead, casts around for a chair to sit on. When he doesn't find one, he perches gingerly on the edge of the bed his eyes watchful on Chibs' face, like he's making sure he didn't jostle Chibs' arm too much.

'Drop off go okay?' Chibs fiddles one-handed with the bag. There's a bunch of stuff in it. The toothbrush, sitting on top, is pink. 'What the fuck is a pikachu?'

'That's all they had! I swear!' Juice's grin suggests he's lying, but fuck it, last time their roles were reversed, Chibs had made sure Juice ended up with a Winnie the Pooh one- Piglet, if he remembers right, so... 

Chibs rests his head back against the pillow, thinks to himself, well, this is shite. Him in a hospital bed, his body in painful pieces when he could be shoulder to shoulder in a bar with Juice, trading jibes and planning what to do to the lad next. Chibs has a feeling his chances of getting Juice bent over his bike in the great outdoors have reduced somewhat... 'Hey. Sorry about all this,' he says. 

Juice gives an emphatic shake of his head. 'Look, let's just get you better an' get you home.'

'Aye, well...' Chibs fiddles with a scar on the pad of Juice's middle finger. 'Listen, I'm gonna be stuck in here all night. They reckon they'll have the x-ray machine all fixed tomorrow, and they can sort my arm out then... You might as well head back.'

'Can they leave it that long? I thought...' Juice goes all thoughtful for a long moment, like he's thinking and doesn't want to scare Chibs with his thoughts. 

Chibs shrugs. He knows. He's gonna be in agony all night, and then, the delay in fixing his arm means it's gonna take fucking ages to heal, and his shitty HMO plan won't let him have all the physio he'll need. 

'Hey, do me a favour an' get this ice pack re-filled, eh?'

'Yeah, sure. Look. I already gotta place to stay- friend of Trike's...' Juice takes the ice bag, looks at it for a moment, puts it down again. 'Jax wants me to stay up here with you, an' then, when they let you out, one a the prospects is gonna come up in the van for us and the bikes.' He pulls a packet of nicotine patches from the depths of the pharmacy bag, slaps one on Chibs' good arm and smooths it down. 'Figured these might help...' 

Juice takes the ice pack and wanders off in search of someone who can help with it, and Chibs watches him go. Lad's pissed off, trying to hide it. 

Part of Chibs would quite like to just stay here, with Evil Edna, John Lennon and his Sunshine Bus backing singer. It's better than Juice being all silent and worried and sulky. Better than the inevitable moment when Juice goes off like a bottle of pop and they start screaming at each other. 

&&&

Juice spends a sleepless night on a lumpy couch. The guy who owns the apartment has an over friendly dog that stinks and slobbers, and apparently thinks Juice is dog-nip, because it spends most of the night trying to slurp his face off. 

He remembers the swirl of black as Chibs had fallen from his bike, can't help dwelling on what might have happened, the awful, unimaginable. The phone call Juice would have to make to tell Chibs' family, his kid...

Ages ago, Juice had met Chibs' sister, and she'd been tiny and fierce and knowing, had cornered him and told him to keep her stupid brother out of trouble. He listens to you, she'd said. 

She was wrong. Chibbie doesn't listen to him. If he did, he wouldn't have drunk before riding, wouldn't have been stubborn enough to try to force his way past that truck, would have noticed the blind bend ahead.

&&&

Chibs spends a sleepless night in a hospital bed. The psycho ward sister clocks out for the night and the night team take over. The change in atmosphere is instantaneous. 

'They didn't give you nothing for the pain, my darling?' Betty, who is ample in all directions and has a soft Jamaican lilt to her voice, strokes the back of his good hand and clucks. 'Let me see what I can do for you,' she says, sashaying away to use a telephone at the nurse's station.

Two hours later, an overworked-looking intern comes scuffling into the ward, and Betty tells him, fists on hips, how awful it is that this poor, poor man, who was knocked off of his motorcycle and dislocated his shoulder, is in terrible pain and no one has given him anything for it. The intern shrinks away from her like he's afraid of being eaten, and scribbles something on Chibs' chart. Thirty minutes later, the world is a much nicer place. 

'Are you feeling better now, my darling?' Betty coos into his drowsy face, stroking the back of his hand again.

'Oh, aye,' he manages before drifting away again.


	3. Chapter 3

Juice returns to the hospital the next morning, the old pair of sweats he'd stowed in his pack as a just-in-case, rolled up in his hand. He passes the drunk guy (now the passed-out-and-snoring-guy), and Flasher Grandma, finds the curtain has been pulled halfway around Chibs' bed. He takes the opportunity to brush a kiss over the other man's cheek while no one else is there to see. 

Chibs’s looking marginally better than he had been the night before. His arm's been strapped and he's looking calm and restful in his bed.

'You sleep any?' he asks, and Chibs makes a face that suggests 'some, not much' and well, that's not really much worse than usual for Chibs. 'X-ray?'

'Yep, first in the queue this morning. They put my shoulder back in about half an hour ago.' Juice tucks a lock of hair behind Chibs' ear and squeezes his good hand. 'Waiting for 'em to scare up a doctor to sign my discharge papers an' then I'm outta here.' 

'Yeah?' Thank fuck for that, Juice thinks. Having his shoulder fixed must have hurt like a bitch. 'What about-'

'Nah, it's fine.' Chibs fidgets the pillow behind him further up his back with his good hand, jostles the bad one and scowls. 'Told 'em I had a doctor friend who'd look after the dressings, an' a willing slave to help me with my personal care...' He throws Juice a wink and Juice rolls his eyes.

'Oh, really? Don't know who you're planning on scaring up for that...' Juice tugs the bedsheets up around Chibs' middle, tucks one loose corner back into the space between the mattress and the bed and smooths some of the creases out.

Chibs tenses a fraction beside him, so Juice knows that someone's coming, steps back, as a black skinned woman, almost as wide as she is tall, wades in with a clipboard and a smile.

'Ohh, good morning to you!' she beams and pats Chibs' good leg as she walks closer, gently presses Juice aside. 'Excuse me, my precious boy. I just want to check Fillip’s blood pressure... You know, he been keeping me smilin' all the way through my shift...' She laughs, fits the cuff around Chibs' arm and plays with the switches.

'She likes mah accent,' Chibs says in a stage whisper. He's playing his accent up. Juice rolls his eyes as the nurse makes a show of swooning and then chuckles to herself. 'Says I remind her o' Braveheart...'

'Probably the dress,' Juice says, plucking at the sleeve of Chibs' hospital gown. 'Look, I'm gonna go call the guys, tell 'em to get here with the van if they're letting you out. Here, put these on.' Juice hands over the ratty old sweats. They're way too big for Juice so hopefully they'll be roomy enough to get over the bandages without clinging. They're gonna be hilariously short though...

&&&

The first thing Chibs does on leaving the hospital, is to light up a cigarette. There's something quite heartbreaking about the sight of a smoker outside a hospital, Juice thinks.

Chibs is wearing the sweatpants, although he'd turned his nose up at the sweater and just pulled his shreaded-to-shit cut on over the bandages. The pants flap around over the tops of his bike boots. Guy looks like he's waiting on a ride back to assisted living.

They sit outside on a low wall by the main entrance to sun themselves and wait for the prospect. Juice reaches over, peels off the nicotine patch adorning Chibs' good arm. 

'This is not how I'd planned on spending today,' Chibs murmurs, scratched sunglasses hiding his eyes as he looks up at the sky. 

'Yeah...' Juice fiddles with the patch, folds in the sticky edges and then tosses it in the trashcan a foot away. 

'What?' Chibs head swivels 'round to look at him. 

Not here, Juice thinks, not now. 'Don't matter. Come on, there he is.' 

&&&

Takes fucking ages to get back to Charming. The ice pack they filled up before they left the hospital lasts about half an hour in the heat of the van. With the bikes stowed in the back, Chibs and Juice have to ride up front with the prospect, and it's fucking horrible, even if it is Juice's thigh brushing against Chibs' own.

Chibs makes them stop at the first supermarket they pass, sends the prospect in for a six pack and more ice, since the painkillers the doctors gave him aren't worth shit, and Juice won't hand over any more of his stash of Vicodin.

'Seriously?' Juice says when they're sitting waiting in the car park. 

'Long journey, Juicy.' Chibs says and Juice just scowls out the windscreen. Chibs would love to just slap the kid upside the head, tell him to shut up, grow up, or fuck off and mind his own business. Without painkillers, beer is the only thing that's going to take the edge off the pain in his arm. He's not an idiot, he knows not to touch hard liquor. Juice squirms around in his seat 'Hey, fucking stop that, will yer?'

'Well, you sit in the middle then!' Juice folds his arms across his chest, scowls a little more. 

Later, they sit and sweat some more in stationary traffic. No idea what's causing the hold up. Far as Chibs is concerned, all the cars have decided to sit there just to piss him off. 

They finally pass the source of the queues- a jack-knifed lorry. Chibs lets out a bark of laughter, he'd know that truck anywhere.... What goes around comes around.

It's dark when they finally roll up outside the house Chibs and Juice are sharing. Chibs' shoulder has seized up after being stuck in the van for so long, and the muscles in his legs are tight and sore, all of his grazes on fire inside the dressings. He staggers into the house like a man of seventy, leans against the kitchen counter and has a good groan while Juice and the prospect wrestle the bikes out of the back of the van. 

'You okay? You need help?' Juice comes in, locking the door behind him and hanging the keys on the little hook next to the door.

'Nah, you're alright.' 

'Fine. Night.' Juice starts up the stairs, two at a time. God knows how his little legs manage it. 

'Hey! What's a matter with you?' Anyone would think Juice was the one with the skin of one arse cheek smeared down the middle of a fucking road.

'I'm tired, man.' Juice pauses but he doesn't turn. His shoulders are all hunched. 

The lad's been snippy since they left TM yesterday. He calmed down a bit in the hospital but then went right back to being a premenstrual bitch on the journey home. 

Frankly, Chibs could do without his bullshit.

'Fine. Fuck off, then!' Chibs peels himself off the counter top and opens one of the two beers he didn't get around to drinking in the van. He twists off the top, chucks it in the vague direction of the bin and takes a pull.

On the third step from the bottom of the stairs, Juice stiffens at the sound and seems to war with himself for a moment before he turns back and marches back down the stairs.

'Okay, fine, I'll say it. You fucked up. You got stupid drunk the night before an important relay ride and passed out in a boxing ring. You started drinking again first thing, and drove like a fucking moron.' 

Juice counts each of Chibs crimes off on his fingertips. He looks like Chibs' Ma. 

Lad really needs to shut up. Chibs goes to speak but Juice just carries right on. 

'You avoided getting breathalyzed by some lucky twist of fate, and if you hadn't, they'd have taken your license off you and it would have served you fucking right.' 

Now the lad's turned into some muppet from Jerry Springer, complete with nu-uh-huh hand gestures. 

'You misjudged that overtake, busted your arm, scraped half the skin off your ass, and nearly fucking died because you were drunk and acting like a dick. There, does that spell it out clear enough for you?'

'Listen, princess.' Juice rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest but it's Chibs' turn now and he's damned well got plenty to say. 'I got a few more years and a lot more hours on the clock than you. I know what my bike's capable of an' I know what I'm capable of. That dick of a trucker's the one that caused my accident, not me.'

'Jesus Christ, would you fucking listen to yourself? You sound as bad as-'

Chibs finishes his beer, launches the bottle across the room and it smashes into the sink. Feels good. Sounds better. 'You mention my old man an' I swear I will put you-' 

'What? You'll put me what? Huh? Through a window? Gonna shut me up, Chibbie? Knock some sense into me? Huh? Who the fuck does that remind you of?' Juice turns and starts back up the stairs, his funny little feet heavy on the steps.

'Hey, fucking get back here!'

'I'm going to bed.'

'Oh, yeah, that's fine, run off an' sulk, just like usual, that's right...' 

Juice turns again, takes a few steps back. 'You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you and your pathetic life and your stupid excuses and it's never about you, it's never your fucking fault. You had a drink, but someone else fucked up. Anything happens you don't like, have another drink, blame someone else-'

 

It's not often Chibs agrees with his old man but he can see the temptation in shutting someone up when they're just fucking ranting.

'Know what? I changed my mind. Fucking go to bed. I'm sick of listening to yer.' Chibs turns and rests his good hand on the kitchen counter, where the surface is cool under his palms. It's better than pulling the kitchen units off the wall and throwing them at Juice.

'Well, excuse me for actually giving a shit!' Juice's footsteps thud back up the stairs but Chibs is done with it. 

Chibs is tired. He hurts. His bike's a mess, and tomorrow he's gonna have to explain to Jax that he nearly dropped a bedroll full of guns all over the highway and was only a four-leafed clover from getting breathalyzed 

He wants one of those Tardis thingies so he can go back, do it all differently. 

He wants to have woken up yesterday morning with Juice snoring beside him, and to have been awake enough to enjoy the sun on his face as they rode out. 

He wants to have dropped the guns off, chewed the fat with Trike and the others for a bit, and then ridden off into the sunset. 

He wants to have spent last night in a sweaty tangle with Juice, not lying in a hospital bed with John Lennon and the Retard Cabaret Act for company. 

More than anything he wants the ice bag sagging over his busted shoulder to be refilled so it actually does some good, but he can't get the stupid cap off the container with one hand, let alone get more ice in the thing, and he's damned if he's giving Juice the satisfaction of asking for help. 

He finds that the cat's already made herself at home on Juicy's side of the bed. Juice must be sleeping in his own room, next door.

Fine. Fuck him. 

'Keep to yer own side of the bed, shithead,' he tells the cat, and she sneers at him, tucks her nose back up her own arse and wraps her tail over her eye. 

&&&

Juice hears Chibs banging around in the bathroom, dropping things and swearing. He should get up, go help him get undressed. With that sling on his arm and the dressings on his leg and hands, he'll be having all sorts of fun. 

Guy would be finding it a lot easier though, if he wasn't half cut, again. Juice stares up at the ceiling instead.

They got this place a couple of months back and it has two bedrooms so they can have one each and more easily maintain the fiction that they're just roomies. Truth is, although Juice's stuff is in here, he always sleeps in Chibs' room. This room only ever gets used when they've had an argument. Chibs even refers to it as the huffy bed.

Juice still can't get that image out of his head: Chibs' body tumbling to the ground, lost beneath the dust kicked up by the truck wheels. There had been a moment when he could have sworn he saw the man go under the wheels and Juice's insides had gone to ice. 

One of these days, Chibs is gonna do something stupid and Juice will lose him. And it's so dumb because Chibs is the sensible one. He knew better than to overtake that truck, just like he knew better than to drink himself stupid the other night, and he knew better than to get on his bike the following day. 

Of course, Juice should have said something, said more, said it sooner. Should have told Jax to pick someone else. He hadn't. 

There aren't many times when Juice is the adult one. On the rare occasions when it does happen, Juice should be stronger with him, tell him to quit being such a dick, just like Chibs always does with him.

Juice thinks about what he'd decided before Chibs' accident. He was gonna get the guy in a good mood, convince him it was in his interests to stay sober from time to time.

It's stupid how he always feels so left behind when Chibs cracks open a beer. It's as if the guy is choosing to go off on his own, some place where Juice can't follow him, and Juice always feels like a kill-joy, trying to call Chibs back to him when he's off having fun without him. It's stupid because Juice is hardly teetotal himself.

But, one of the reasons it always seems to work out between Juice and Chibs is that they don't try to own each other- they're not husband and wife, or, husband and husband, or whatever. They're two guys who fuck, and now they also share a house. That doesn't mean either one gets to tell the other how to live his life. If Chibs decides he wants to kill himself, Juice doesn't have the right to stop him. All he can do is enjoy the guy while he has him.


	4. Chapter 4

Chibs glares up at the ceiling. Jesus, what a fucking day! And Juice's little prima donna routine hadn't helped. Yeah, Chibs had a drink before they left TM the day before, but it was that or not be able to ride, and then Juice would have been sulking at having to go on the relay with one of the others. 

Drink-drive laws are there for the idiots of this world. Chibs knows his judgment was spot on when he overtook that semi- would have been fine if the driver hadn't been messing around, trying to stop him from getting past- he'd have made it before that bend in the road, easy. 

His throat is dry and scratchy, and his shoulder's fucking slaying him. It hadn't been too bad sitting up in the hospital bed, but the drive home had been hellish, and now, lying flat on his back, he feels like yanking the damned thing off and beating himself over the head with the wet end. 

There's no way he's getting any sleep like this. He gets up, shuffles back downstairs, leaving the cat to moult fur across the whole of the duvet. 

He gives the kettle a little shake with his good arm and decides there's enough water in it for a cupful, flicks the switch and hunts through the cupboard for the teabags.

He remembers the moment that second semi had come out of nowhere, the flash of panic spiking up his spine as time simultaneously slowed down and sped up. He remembers the way both trucks had fought to pull him under, trying to keep himself and his bike upright and balanced between the two. 

He remembers realizing he'd have to let go, the moment of weightlessness, and that in the hour-long seconds between him letting go and hitting the ground, he'd seen it all: Juice, shy and nervous in the clubhouse the night before, the way his face had fallen just a little fraction each time Chibs glanced over the rim of his shot glass. The warmth of the bed with Juice already in it, snoring and murmuring softly. The way the lad had been bouncing around for the last week, ever since they knew they'd be on the relay together. The little warm thud Chibs had felt low in his belly at the sight of Juice so excited.

He remembers that he'd lain in the road and he'd known, known he couldn't have survived that crash. He'd thought about the last time he'd seen Juice, that the kid had been frowning and worried. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd touched him. And that was fucking sad, not being able to hold onto a memory like that, a memory that should be important, should be tattooed onto the fabric of his brain. 

Juice's footsteps had found him, the lad white as a sheet, and Chibs had thought, yeah, I'm dead. There's no way Juice could look like that if I'm still here. 

He'd looked at the lad and thought, okay, is this what I've been waiting on before they open the pearly gates? Am I supposed to be saying something to the lad, sorry or goodbye or something, before I die? 

It had felt so unfinished.

He'd looked and he'd wanted to memorize Juice's face. Knew it was too late to do anything else. 

Then, of course, the pain had kicked in and he'd not been dead, he'd just been lying in the road with a busted shoulder and he'd forgotten all about his little Highway to Heaven moment...

Shite.

&&&

Juice sees the light come on in the other room through the space under his door and then he hears Chibs' clumsy footsteps make their way down the stairs. 

He wars with himself for a while, but in the end, pushes the bedclothes aside and gets up. Nearly trips over the cat in the hallway, and she squeals and wriggles free, races down the stairs, the little bell on her collar jingling as she goes. 

The TV's on- National Geographic. 

Juice finds Chibs sitting on their couch, about as upright as it's possible to get, scowl on his face and mug in his hand. There's a brown shape bobbing around in the mug- the teabag, which Chibs always leaves in his tea till it's the colour of brick dust. Totally gross. But, it's not alcohol and Juice feels a little jump of relief at that. 

'Anything good on?' Juice curls his feet under him at the other end of the couch.

'Nah. Had Animal Planet on but they had your favourites on so I turned it over.'

'Those creepy eel things?' Juice can't help shuddering at the thought of them. Fucking evil things, give him nightmares. 'Shoulder still hurting?' 

'It'll go off now I'm sitting up. Come here.' Chibs beckons him over with his good arm. 

Typical Chibs, Juice thinks. Guy blows hot and cold, gets it from his old man. Juice knows better than to ignore the olive branch when it's offered, crawls over, and rests his head on the couch back next to Chibs' own. He threads his fingers through Chibs'. 

'You alright?' 

Juice shrugs. Two in the morning is not the time for a continuation of their argument and Chibs looks like he hasn't slept since about nineteen seventy. 'I'm sorry for earlier. It's... it's not my business.'

'Eh?' Chibs turns his head to look at him and Juice has to look away, stares at the scrapes poking out from beneath the dressings on Chibs' thigh. 

'Listen Juicy. I'm used to driving with a bit of a buzz on, but... I mighta misjudged that corner.' Chibs gives a one sided shrug. 

Juice knows it's about as close to a mea culpa as he’s gonna get right now. 'I'm not the only one who thought you were drinking too much...' he says softly, waits for the inevitable blow-up, but Chibs just rubs his eyes, casts around awkwardly for a cigarette and curses when he sees he picked an empty packet off his bedside earlier. Juice watches him war with himself about whether to get up and go search for more, or just go without. 

'Juicy...'

'Yeah, I know.' Juice gets up, goes to the little cupboard in which he stashed the bootleg cigarettes Hap appropriated, and comes up with a new pack. He fiddles the shrink wrap off and hands a coffin nail to Chibs, gets a lighter off the mantel.

'Oh, that where they ended up?' Chibs looks curiously into the open cupboard as if trying to see what other goodies might have been stowed in there and Juice kicks it quickly shut. 

Juice sits himself on their little packing crate table and feels like he's about to give the speech of his life, like he's bargaining with the devil or something, and any minute he could be laughed out of the room, or swatted, or shot at. 

'Babe, I don't know how much you remember, but I saw the crash, and I swear, I saw you go under that semi. And if you had, you'd a just been a stain in the fucking road and I'd have had to go back to Jax and tell him I let it happen because I didn't do enough to make you listen to me-'

'What are you on about, Juicy?' Chibs has paused, cigarette halfway to his mouth. He's even half-way to frowning, like he was about to, but forgot how. 'I'm the one who decided to overtake that lorry, you're not responsible.'

'That's just it! It's not my business, none of what you do is any of my business, but I-' Juice runs out of words, shrugs instead. His hands are tucked under his ass because the packing crate is fucking uncomfortable to sit on, and now his fingers are going numb. If he moves them though, they'll probably be shaking. Chibs' eyes narrow, like he's looking, really looking at Juice, maybe seeing something he doesn't like , or hadn't ever seen before.

'Juicy, me being a bit tired an in a shitty mood's no excuse. If you, or any o' the others acted like that, I'd a fucking smacked you upside the head. We're still brothers an' that means you get to tell me when I'm acting like a prick.' 

'Brothers?' Juice can't help laugh at that and Chibs grins, shrugs again. 

'Well, sort of...' There's a long moment when Juice just looks at him and then Chibs pops his cigarette back into his mouth and reaches out with his good arm, tugs at Juice's wrist. 'Hey, get over here before that fucking thing collapses...'

'Oh, okay, brother.' Juice lets himself be coaxed, returns to the couch and takes Chibs' cigarette off him for a drag, hands it back.

'Listen to me.' Chibs fingertips play at the pulse point on Juice's wrist. 'You didn't say anything that any o' the others wouldn't a said. I wasn't too drunk to ride, but if I hadn't a misjudged that corner, we'd a been havin' a much better night of it...' He waggles his eyebrows and Juice smiles, rests his head on Chibs' good shoulder. 

Denial, much? Juice thinks. Guy's like a freight train heading for Drunksville. But, Juice isn't stupid enough to think that one little bike crash is gonna be enough to get the guy to an AA meeting. It's a start, though.

Chibs lets his head fall back against the back of the couch and then winces and groans when it jars his shoulder.

'Hey, easy. Don't do that.' Juice reaches up to tip Chibs' head up again, rubs at the back of his neck. 'Where's your ice pack?' 

Chibs gives a little reluctant shrug with his good shoulder. 

'Jesus man, you heard that nurse. Gotta keep the swelling down...' Juice gets up, runs back upstairs and finds the thing tossed on the floor under the bed. He takes it back down to the kitchen, empties, and refills it from the ice box. 

He presses it to Chibs' shoulder again and the guy hisses then sighs. 

Chibs' eyes close for a long moment and then blink open again. 'Hey, what you hidin' in that cupboard with all the fags in?'

Ah shit, Juice thinks. Chibs' Christmas present is stashed behind the bootleg cigarettes and a bunch of computer stuff. 'Nothing!' He does his best to look innocent. 'Come on, you need to sleep.' Juice holds out one hand for Chibs to take but the guy hesitates. 'It's okay, I got an idea. Go ahead.' Juice gestures for Chibs to go upstairs and the other man just rolls his eyes, does as he's told, the cupboard hopefully forgotten.

&&&

Chibs gets himself to the top of the stairs and hears Juicy behind him. He turns to find that the kid has taken all of the upholstered cushions off the sofa and the armchair and stacked them up to bring them upstairs. 

 

'Hold on,' Juice says and sets about arranging them on Chibs' side of the bed. 'Go ahead.' 

Chibs sits gingerly, finds that the cushions have been set up so he can sit practically upright, like he did in the hospital. Then, Juice stacks more on each side of him so he's wedged in and can't roll on his side. 

'There. Comfy?' The lad stands back to survey his work, and Chibs wriggles to get everything settled. 

It's pretty damned good. The cushions are high enough up that his head and bad arm will be supported. 'Not bad.' 

'Okay. Cool.' Juice steps back as if he's gonna go back to the other bed.

'Hey, get back here.' 

'You sure? I move around too much, I might hurt-'

'Juicy, get into bed, will yer? Jesus...' 

The lad breaks into a shy grin, slides his legs beneath the covers on his side, picks at a ball of fluff from his pillow. 'Did you let the cat on here, Chibby?'

'Eh? Course not...' Chibs doesn't let that creature do anything, it just decides what it wants to do and smirks when you tell it to fuck off. 

Juice doesn't look convinced, but he turns the pillow over and lies down on his side, facing Chibs. 'You know, you look pretty funny up there.'

'Not as funny as you'll look suffocated under one a these pillows.' Chibs' eyelids feel heavy as lead, but there's fuck all chance of him sleeping yet. Even with all of these cushions, his shoulder and the grazes down his arse and thigh are killing him.

'Hold on.' The bed shifts as Juice rolls out of it, disappears into the hall way. Chibs hears stuff being shifted around in the bathroom cabinet and then Juice returns. 

'These might help you sleep,' Juice says, pressing two little pills into his palm. Chibs squints hard. They look like the heavy duty shit the nurses had given him before they set his shoulder. He guesses Juicy must have chatted that nurse up after all. Brave lad.

Well, thanks, Chibs thinks. Could've fucking done with these earlier. 

Juice just shrugs. 'Didn't wanna risk it when you'd had a drink, so...' 

Chibs chucks the pills down his gullet and swallows hard. Now he just needs to wait for them to kick in.

Juice climbs back into the bed, lies there with his eyes watchful on Chibs' face. Then he shifts. 'If I try something, will you keep still?' 

The lad fiddles with the fingers on Chibs good hand. When Chibs says nothing, he shifts closer, pulling the bedclothes aside and bows his head down over Chibs' lap. He's ridiculously gentle as he coaxes Chibs' cock out of his shorts, settles his lips around the head. 

'Juicy, why are you-'

'Shh... Just trying to take your mind off it,' Juice murmurs, slides down Chibs' cock with a happy sigh. 

Takes fucking ages. The pain in Chibs' shoulder and leg form a vicious counterpoint to the pleasure pooling in his dick. 

Chibs thinks, this is pointless, there's no fucking way he's getting it up. Then he looks down, sees the careful concentration on Juice's face, the way the lad is holding his body so that he doesn't rest his weight on Chibs leg, doesn't jostle him or upset his injuries. 

Lad's still shaken, still thinks he's responsible for Chibs not having the sense his mother gave him. And he's feeling guilty for Chibs being in pain.

And that's just stupid because Juicy has nothing to feel bad about. Chibs is the one who ruined their time off by nearly getting himself killed. 

Chibs runs the palm of his good hand over the stubble on the back of Juice's head, rubs the lad's shoulders and lets his lips fall open on an encouraging moan. Juice answers it with one of his own, one hand shifting to cup Chibs' balls, roll them softly. 

Yeah, Chibs thinks, I've been a shit. 

He closes his eyes, concentrates on the suction Juice has created around his dick, thinks about what he'd had planned for the two of them this weekend, Juicy, naked in the great outdoors, shivering at the cool air on his skin. He comes and it's a gentle and lazy thing, amazing lightness followed immediately by heaviness as his brain pulls him down into sleep. 

He feels more than hears Juice chuckle and press a fond kiss to the head of his cock. 

Juice shifts away to lie down, doesn't go far though, just drapes one arm loosely across Chibs' lap and tucks his face down against the flesh of Chibs' hip, slips into sleep.

Next time they get a chance to slip away without the others, Chibs isn't gonna fuck it up.


End file.
